You're Part Of A Machine (You Are Not A Human Being)
by SereneCalamity
Summary: Clary never saw herself as more than a killing machine. Jace did. Clace. Oneshot


_The title comes from the song_ Gasoline _by Halsey, which is one of my favourite songs by her! Definitely check it out. And the plot is based on a request from reppinda5o3 which was '_ _Could you show me dear? Something I'm not seeing' taken from the song_ Echo _by Incubus._

 _Disclaimer: I do not own the characters or the title._

Clarissa Fray's first memory was when she was twelve years old.

There was a man, in the corner of the room, with a fabric hood over his head. His hands were tied behind his back, his legs tied to the corners of the chair.

She killed him.

There were a few more memories over the years, although a lot of them were fuzzy.

Her last name—'Fray'—that wasn't hers.

'Clarissa' wasn't either, but she knew it began with a C.

She didn't know the names of everyone that she had killed, but she knew the number, and she remembered every single one of their faces.

She was a machine.

She was an asset.

She was born with the sole purpose of being a soldier. She was raised with a group of girls—she assume that they had always been the same girls, but with the amount of chemicals and procedures that she had gone through, wiping her memory and removing any chance of emotional ties—and had known nothing more than fighting and killing.

She wasn't sure how old she was when she was captured by Jace Herondale. She knew that she was older than eighteen, and she assumed that she was in her mid-twenties. She had been ordered to kill him, he had been her target, and she had failed.

She tried to attack him at least another ten times over the next few months that followed.

All she could think about was getting back to the Circle, and about what they were going to do to her, given not only she had failed to kill her target, but she had also failed to return and report. It wasn't that she couldn't take the pain—another part of her training had been to endure torture, and there were faded scars on her back and legs and arms to show that she was strong enough to fight through the pain.

But it was all she _knew_.

It had been a whole other year before she was allowed back outside again, and even then, she was watched closely by Isabelle Lightwood.

She liked Isabelle.

Isabelle was like her, except there was trust and humanity in her eyes that Clary didn't see when she looked at her reflection in the mirror.

Isabelle was a fighter, and she was strong, and she was confident. Clary was quicker than her, she was a more skilled fighter, but Isabelle could still hold her own.

Jace was as good as her though.

He challenged her.

Alexander Lightwood didn't trust her for a long time. He was the smart one, and she respected that. He had his priorities, and even though she didn't agree with them—his family and friends came before everything else—she could respect that he was trying to keep them safe.

Luke Garroway was the one in charge of the Institute.

He had been the one who had ordered for Clary to be taken out when they had realized that she had been set to blow up a building where peace talks were happening between the leaders of several war torn countries. Jace had been sent it to stop her, but for some reason, at the last moment, he decided to shoot her in the leg instead.

When that didn't do anything except slow her down, he shot her in the other leg as well, and then had smacked her in the back of the head, knocking her out.

Luke hadn't been particularly happy with Jace going against his orders, but for some reason, he agreed to help her. Admittedly, their version of 'help' was keeping her sedated most of the first few months because she kept ripping the stitches out of her legs in attempts to kill whoever approached her— _especially_ Jace—but after several years, she could see why they did it.

They were so careful around her, she spent huge amounts of times with therapists and neurologists, and she refused to work with them, the training engrained right into her bones. But after time, they wore her down.

And funnily enough, even though she had tried to kill him so many times, it was Jace that she trusted most of all.

That was because, as she got older, as the years went by and she changed from a soldier into something that vaguely resembled a human, she knew that he had risked a lot to save her.

Because how was he to know that there would come a day when the training and brainwashing was broken through, and she wouldn't try to kill him anymore?

But it came.

With a lot of time, it came. Jace never gave up, he was always there for her, even when she didn't want him to be. Isabelle was there, she made terrible jokes and would talk about shoes for hours, which Clary didn't understand in the way that she did, but she liked the chatter. And even Alec was there, although his presence was at a distance to begin with, but she found it grounding.

She was the one that chose the name Clarissa Fray.

She hadn't had a name with the Circle, not just one. She had a hundred alias', but never her own name.

She also chose a birthday.

They didn't send her on her first mission until nearly two and a half years later, and she knew that they were watching her carefully the whole time. But they sent her out with Jace and Isabelle, so at least it was people that she was comfortable with.

She liked being on missions.

She liked _saving_ people.

She didn't even know she was _capable_ of doing something good until maybe six months out in the field, where they rescued a handful of young girls who had been taken by human traffickers. One of the girls had given her a hug, big eyes wide as she looked up at Clary, and told her thank you.

Clary had never cried before, and she had been taken aback by the pressure behind her eyes.

It was that night, standing in front of a mirror in her room—something else that had taken a lot for her to adapt to, having her own space—when there was a knock at her door. Clary swallowed hard, pushing back all the emotions that had been rising in her chest, and squared her shoulders as she walked toward the door. When she opened it up, Jace was standing on the other side. He was wearing sweatpants and a loose shirt and he had bare feet. He had undoubtedly crossed the hall from his own room and just knocked on her door.

He asked to come in and Clary let him. He was the only person that she ever allowed into her space, she was protective of her room. He was respectful of her room as well, always waited until she answered the door, never stepped in unless she said he could, didn't stay for longer than she was comfortable with.

"I just wanted to make sure that you were okay," Jace said quietly as he closed the door behind her. He made sure to give her some space, not get too close. She still wasn't very happy with physical contact, only okay with it when they were training together. There had been one time when Jace had put his arm around her, and she had been okay with that, but not for a long period of time. There had been a few times when he had wanted to hug her, but she had shied away each time.

"I'm fine," Clary's automatic response was.

"Okay," Jace nodded, not pushing it even though it was clear that he didn't believe her. "Well, if you ever want to talk, you know where I am." He was turning and walking toward the door when Clary stepped forward.

"Jace?" She asked, and he paused, turning back around to look at her. "Why didn't you kill me?" She continued, her voice blunt and straight to the point. She had never really been one for subtlety. "You knew my profile—at least, what you had on me." It hadn't been much, the Circle was good at keeping under the radar, but they still had some things on her, mainly that she was a deadly, brainwashed soldier. "But you didn't kill me."

"I don't know," Jace shrugged a shoulder, and maybe that wasn't the answer she wanted, but it was the truth, and that was what she had asked for. "But I'm glad I did," he said with a small smile, stepping closer to her. Clary's eyes waved from his face, glancing down at his feet to where he had come closer, before looking back up. "You know that this is your home now, right? That you're safe here, and that we're your family." He told her that a lot, because he knew that she never had any of those reassurances as she had grown up.

"Yeah..." Clary swallowed again. "I just...I don't see why you wanted to bring me here. Why you thought that I was worth saving. Even..." she trailed off again, and Jace waited patiently, knowing that she wasn't good when it came to talking about her feelings. She could barely process _having_ them at times, muchless putting them into words. "Even after you brought me back here...It still took a long time before I got to—to where I am now. What did you see in me?" Jace took in a deep breath as he stepped forward again, now directly in front of her.

"Because there is so much more to you than you think," Jace told her simply. "You think that all you're good for is violence, but I know that there's more. I know that you have a heart, even if it's buried deep down. And that girl today, she saw it as well." Clary blinked up at him, and Jace reached up and touched her face briefly, his thumb over her cheek, before dropping his hand again. He was about to turn to leave when Clary lunged forward and wrapped Jace in a hug.

It felt more like a headlock, and he was definitely going to give her some pointers going forward, but he knew what a big step it was for.

He hugged her back, his arms around her small but lethal body.

She might not see what she could be, but he did.

And he would show her.

He wouldn't stop until she saw what he did.

 _Let me know what you think :)_


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